Peter Lucas: Baker might have another runaway train -- at UMass

The way they throw money around at the MBTA, you'd think that Gov. Charlie Baker had appointed Marty Meehan to run it.

Meehan, the former congressman from Lowell, of course, does not run the transit authority. He is the newly appointed president of the University of Massachusetts.

But the way Meehan has doled out outlandish pay raises for members of his vast administrative staff, it would lead one to believe that he would be just as qualified to run the MBTA.

Only last week the Boston Herald revealed that 27 MBTA workers were paid more than $200,000 a year, while one maintenance foreman with overtime pulled in more than $315,000. A whopping 24 percent of the MBTA's 6,500 workers make $100,000 a year.

But Meehan, the former chancellor of UMass Lowell, is making the MBTA look like cheapskates.

These two state agencies -- the MBTA and UMass -- are now "owned" by Baker. He may have inherited both, and their problems, from Gov. Deval Patrick, but they are now his, and the success of his administration will depend on how both bodies perform.

Right now the governor cannot be happy with either. The increased spending by both tax-supported institutions means higher MBTA fares and increased tuition costs for UMass students.

All of Baker's good intentions will turn to slush if the MBTA breaks down again this winter, as it did during the long winter of commuter discontent a year ago.

The UMass problem is different.

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Meehan has created a public-relations nightmare for himself by handing out huge pay raises to entrenched staffers he just met.

He passed out $20,000 Christmas pay hikes while pleading with the Legislature for an additional appropriation of $11 million in taxpayer money to fund already negotiated pay hikes for professors.

While many legislators may not be graduates of UMass, they just might be smart enough to question the appropriation, given Meehan's apparent insensitivity to the image he has created for himself as a big spender, handing out big pay raises as his first order of business.

He gave James Julian, UMass executive vice president, a $20,000 pay hike, bringing Julian's salary to a whopping $371,384, which is more than double what the governor is paid.

Julian was originally brought over to UMass by former Senate President William Bulger when Bulger became UMass president. Bulger was later fired, but Julian stayed on.

UMass official David McDermott, another Bulger associate, got the same $20,000 pay hike, bringing his salary up to $195,742. Press aide Robert Connolly, a former Boston Herald reporter, got the $20,000 hike, boosting him up to $211,569. Patricia McCafferty, a one-time Lowell Sun reporter and longtime Meehan aide, also got the $20,000, bringing her pay up to $233,000. And there are more, many more.

Meehan is paid a basic $525,000, which will go up each year. He has a $60,000 housing allowance, a $12,500 car allowance, and $19,800 in paid life insurance.

The governor, for the record, is paid $150,000. House Speaker Robert DeLeo and Senate President Stan Rosenberg make $102,000, respectively.

News of Meehan's largesse came just as it was reported that the offices of the UMass president are being moved back to the top of pricey One Beacon Street from quarters on Franklin Street that had been less expensive.

While Meehan could set up shop on the grounds of any of the school's five campuses, including UMass Boston at Columbia Point, he is moving into space than will cost the state $1.5 million a year more in rent than what UMass had been paying at the Franklin Street space.

Granted the move was approved by Meehan's predecessor, but the decision to move into offices once occupied by Bulger, is Meehan's. This has raised the question whether Meehan is set on duplicating Bulger's costly imperial political lifestyle.

The sweeping views from the new UMass offices from the 30th and 31st floor of the Beacon Hill building are stunning. From the plush new offices Meehan, like Bulger before him, can look down upon the Statehouse.

The Statehouse is where the frugal governor works out of a Spartan-like closet of an office, having spurned use of the lavish regular governor's office that Deval Patrick spent $11.3 million to refurbish.

It must be hugely satisfying for Meehan. The Statehouse is where Meehan got his first political job 30 years ago, working as a gofer for then Secretary of State Michael Connolly, which enabled him to attend nearby Suffolk Law School.

It's all just pretty cool.

It's too bad Charlie Baker may not think so.

Peter Lucas' political column appears Tuesday and Friday. Email him at luke1825@aol.com.

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